Since nearly no one is talking about it...

[zoom-zoom]

Even though it's all over the major news networks (http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/7-killed-including-gunman-in-shooting-at-wisconsin-sikh-temple/2012/08/05/70692158-df2b-11e1-a19c-fcfa365396c8_story.html). This tragedy has been pretty much swept under the rug in comparison to the level of grief and attention afforded to a similar and tragic event in CO just weeks ago.

Racism is so ugly. A group of peaceful Sikhs gunned-down in their place of worship deserve just as much attention in social media as do a group of movie-goers, IMO. If we (as a nation) ignore this event does it mean we agree with the white-supremacist shooter...?

Just hours after the CO shootings there were countless threads and graphics honoring the victims of that event. On FB I have counted 3 links to the story since the shootings took place. THREE.

Are there really that many bigots amongst my FB friends (I'd like to think this isn't the case)? I only found out about this even this evening when I was online for the first time all day after a wonderful day in the great outdoors and happened to be scanning a local news site to find information about an accident we happened upon.

As much as the story upsets me, the reaction (or lack thereof) makes me truly ill.

[Owlie]

Even though it's all over the major news networks (http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/7-killed-including-gunman-in-shooting-at-wisconsin-sikh-temple/2012/08/05/70692158-df2b-11e1-a19c-fcfa365396c8_story.html). This tragedy has been pretty much swept under the rug in comparison to the level of grief and attention afforded to a similar and tragic event in CO just weeks ago.

Racism is so ugly. A group of peaceful Sikhs gunned-down in their place of worship deserve just as much attention in social media as do a group of movie-goers, IMO. If we (as a nation) ignore this event does it mean we agree with the white-supremacist shooter...?

Just hours after the CO shootings there were countless threads and graphics honoring the victims of that event. On FB I have counted 3 links to the story since the shootings took place. THREE.

Are there really that many bigots amongst my FB friends (I'd like to think this isn't the case)? I only found out about this even this evening when I was online for the first time all day after a wonderful day in the great outdoors and happened to be scanning a local news site to find information about an accident we happened upon.

As much as the story upsets me, the reaction (or lack thereof) makes me truly ill.

I hate to say this and it isn't nearly on the same scale, but I think it's sort of comparable to the shooting in Norway last year. Yes, the media at large condemned the action, but not the motivation behind it, because a huge number of people implicitly agree with it. "We don't want nasty foreign brown people here!" is a sadly common sentiment, no matter where those "brown people" are from or what religion they may belong to.

Americans as a whole tend to lump all non-Latino "brown people" into one entity, and almost every article notes that Sikh men wear turbans and are "easily confused with Muslims." So I think there's a significant chunk of the population who agree with the apparent motivation, if not the action and the fact that the shooter managed to get the 'wrong' group of people. This opens another can of worms. I don't want to imagine what would happen had the target been a mosque rather than a Sikh temple.

The other reason I can think of for the outpouring of expression of shock and grief over the Aurora shootings is that for most people, that could have easily been them. In this case, if you're not a minority from certain ethnic backgrounds, you're safe.

[lph]

People will always react most strongly to bad things happening to people they identify with, there's just no way around it. And there's no logic in emotional reaction either. It's been one year since the shootings in Norway now. In a way I think that if Breivik had managed to target the muslims he so viciously hates that might have generated more sympathy for them and actually forced white Norwegians to look at how they think and feel. As it is he shot down mostly white Norwegians, most of them kids and teenagers. People can pour out endless amounts of sympathy for the families and swear "it will never happen again" without having to think any uncomfortable thoughts about what lay behind it and how their own viewpoints may tie in with it.

This bugs me. For a year now Norway has been collectively holding hands and holding a very dignified and calm court case over the shooting (and patting our backs about it and being righteous), at the same time there's been a huge debate about maybe two or three hundred dirt poor gypsies who've been camping around in parks in Oslo and being a nuisance. The comments under news articles have been vitriolic, the amount of hatred spewed out is just scary. So much for holding hands and being calm and just.

[Kiwi Stoker]

Most Australians and New Zealanders look at USA and it's gun culture and shake our heads. Shootings and murders by guns are RARE here and that's because we have tight gun control.

The 2nd ammendment has a lot to answer for, especially since the latest shooting was with a hand gun. What next? Metal detectors at movie theatres and religious places? There is no need for people to walk around carrying a gun all the time. Get with the times USA!

[OakLeaf]

Um, we don't need to turn this thread into national chauvinism, either... (and I would point out that the US overall homicide rate is not so different from that of Australia's Northern Territory...)


I don't know, zoom-zoom. Are you referring to your FB friends or to the news sources you subscribe to? We were home and watching on TV as the cops secured the scene :( :( but it was a Sunday afternoon, and if it took you that long to hear about it, then it was probably the same for most people you know. I just looked at my FB page and it's true, there are only a couple of reactions to the shooting, but there are also probably no more than 15 postings of any kind since that happened, most of them sports and gardening sites that tend to be among the last to respond to tragedies outside their own communities. Personally, I just don't usually post a tribute over that sort of thing, myself, no matter the scale or the details.

[zoom-zoom]

I don't know, zoom-zoom. Are you referring to your FB friends or to the news sources you subscribe to? We were home and watching on TV as the cops secured the scene :( :( but it was a Sunday afternoon, and if it took you that long to hear about it, then it was probably the same for most people you know. I just looked at my FB page and it's true, there are only a couple of reactions to the shooting, but there are also probably no more than 15 postings of any kind since that happened, most of them sports and gardening sites that tend to be among the last to respond to tragedies outside their own communities. Personally, I just don't usually post a tribute over that sort of thing, myself, no matter the scale or the details.

528 friends and after scrolling through the day's posts I found 3 links to news articles. When CO happened my wall blew up with people posting about the horror.

I was nowhere near any media until about 7:30pm, as we did a long-century ride yesterday (with several loops, breaks, people with mechanicals, guy cramping, hills, wind). People were definitely on FB and posting the usual nonsense, but the shootings in WI were essentially ignored. Even the 3 links posted only had a comment or two given.

[lovelygamer]

The right to bear arms goes back to the English militia in the UK, and the mentality of the American Revolution that followed. In the US, we have the right to bear arms, supposedly, to keep our government in check. Among other reasons.

Not that you can see any of this in the Patriot Act.

The people that keep harking to the 2nd amendment and the right to bear arms should keep in mind that we don't live in Revolutionary times. Keeping our government in check? Like that is going to happen in our lifetime.

I am ashamed at the lack of gun control in our country. While we are at it, I"m also ashamed at the lack of health care too.

I've traveled the world and yes we have a higher standard of living than most but our idea of "control" is so misguided. Our government controls things we don't NEED them to control and doesn't control things that do need to be controlled.

Just having a higher standard of living doesn't make the US the BEST country in the world. We have to start thinking globally and look at standards across the world in our first world countries.

P.S. Hate is never going to end, anywhere. It is an awful awful situation but I don't know how you can control these hate or terrorist incidents. It is a shame. You know what else is a shame? The news reporter today saying "Sikhism originated in Italy" on a US news network.

PS. I don't want to get involved in a huge debate but just thought I would put my .02 in. Ride on, friends!

[zoom-zoom]

I am ashamed at the lack of gun control in our country. While we are at it, I"m also ashamed at the lack of health care too.

I've traveled the world and yes we have a higher standard of living than most but our idea of "control" is so misguided. Our government controls things we don't NEED them to control and doesn't control things that do need to be controlled.

Just having a higher standard of living doesn't make the US the BEST country in the world. We have to start thinking globally and look at standards across the world in our first world countries.

Actually, I don't think our standard of living is high at all...not when compared to the UK or Scandinavia...countries with universal health care and much lower infant/maternal mortality. We have a helluvalot of people "living" below the poverty line, too. FAR more than a company with our resources should.

[limewave]

Did not even know this happened! But I haven't had the news/tv/radio or been on the net much at all. When I have been online I've been looking for updates on Jakson Kreiser--missing in Glacier Nat'l Park. We have a connection to his family.

I feel like there are so many tragic and scary things going on right now. Zoom-Zoom, even locally the stories we've had about the Good Samaritans being attacked.

Did not mean to get off topic. What is going on in this world? I'm heartbroken for the lost lives and the families/friends left behind in this horrible tragedy in Wisconsin.

[PamNY]

Even though it's all over the major news networks[/URL]. This tragedy has been pretty much swept under the rug in comparison to the level of grief and attention afforded to a similar and tragic event in CO just weeks ago..

Swept under the rug? It only happened yesterday.

ETA: I didn't realize you were talking about Facebook. In real life, among my friends, this will get more attention than something like the Colorado shooting, for obvious reasons.

[beccaB]

I didn't even know about that one. I don't read our local paper but it wouldn't have that in there because it's a crappy paper. I think racial violence is so dangerous because it happens more often than a random senseless mentally Ill motivated shooting. It's more dangerous because it's more likely to happen because there are so many intolerances still. Yet people have almost as a whole population, become desensitized to it, where a random shooting from a mentally deranged person gets so much more attention because people are desensitized to racial violence to some extent. It should be every bit as shocking and appalling but the media wants to play up the scenes that will get them the most viewers.

[zoom-zoom]

I didn't even know about that one. I don't read our local paper but it wouldn't have that in there because it's a crappy paper. I think racial violence is so dangerous because it happens more often than a random senseless mentally Ill motivated shooting. It's more dangerous because it's more likely to happen because there are so many intolerances still. Yet people have almost as a whole population, become desensitized to it, where a random shooting from a mentally deranged person gets so much more attention because people are desensitized to racial violence to some extent. It should be every bit as shocking and appalling but the media wants to play up the scenes that will get them the most viewers.

In this case the media is giving it ample attention, but I am still seeing almost no mention of it among the general public. That greatly saddens and frightens me. CO was horrific, but this strikes me as so much more grave, for the reason you give. These people were targeted for who they were, not where they were.

[indysteel]

I'm confused as to your conclusion that the "general public" isn't talking about the shooting. What metric are you using for that? Your own Facebook feed? I don't know how much I would assume from just Facebook.

The news outlets I follow have coverage of the shooting and there are a thousand plus comments to each of those stories. Is the news coverage as rabidly sensationalistic about this shooting as it was about the CO shooting? Maybe not, but that might not be a bad thing. For better or for worse, the CO shooting provoked a media and water cooler-discussion frenzy, but that hardly means that the coverage and discussions were all intelligent or worthy. I'm more interested in the quality of the coverage and ensuing dialogue, not quantity.

[lovelygamer]

Actually, I don't think our standard of living is high at all...not when compared to the UK or Scandinavia...countries with universal health care and much lower infant/maternal mortality. We have a helluvalot of people "living" below the poverty line, too. FAR more than a company with our resources should.

I agree with you. We like to advertise our standard of living is higher than it really is.

[salsabike]

I don't think not talking about it means that people don't care. And quite a lot of people choose to keep their FB posts off politics or other things that in their personal lives they take very seriously.

[Crankin]

Funny, I relate much more to this one. There have been several national or local incidents that have caused my synagogue to hire a police detail. Every year, when I walk in the door for the High Holidays and there are 2-3 Acton police officers standing there, I think of this.
I didn't talk about the Colorado thing with anyone, except DH.

[Trek420]

.... While we are at it, I"m also ashamed at the lack of health care too. ........

PS. I don't want to get involved in a huge debate but just thought I would put my .02 in. Ride on, friends!

I think in all the ongoing talk about health care (and I'm not wishing to turn this into a debate about the Affordable Care act) I just want to say that we need to add to the civil conversation; mental health care IS health care.

So when people lack access to affordable care mental health is part of what's unavailable.

We talk easily about the child with miss-set broken bones or consequences of poor prenatal care, the missed or late diagnosis of cancer. What happens to a veteran under stress who can't get help? Perhaps this. We saw in the Gabby Giffords shooting the family had been trying to get mental health care to the shooter. Same seems to be true in Colorado: the shooter may have fallen off the radar or through the cracks.

We need to remove the stigma of asking for help and make mental health care easily and widely available.

My $0.02. Back to cycling.

[indigoiis]

I honestly think many (myself, for one) are just in shock that this has happened again. What does one say? I thought the Colorado coverage was different only in that there was so much focus on the shooter. Perhaps because he was still alive and "still wasn't finished" i.e. the bomb-laden apartment, etc. In this case, it's just like, egads, again???? Do we really have to endure the stupid rants of the NRA crowd again??? I feel so awful for all of the victims. It is just so terribly tragic and unnecessary. But I will not read the comments in the news stories anymore.

[Koronin]

I've also seen news coverage of it. I'm in the same camp as indigoiis. My first thought was great again.
The Colorado shooting got a lot more after the fact coverage because the shooter is still alive and had an apt full of bombs, which had to be carefully gotten into and diffused. In this case the gunman is dead.
Also this one appears to be more of a hate crime is is much scarier because many times if the person doesn't have access to a gun they will use other ways such as home made bombs which can have even worse outcomes.

Trek420, totally agree about the mental health coverage. It really isn't there. Even if you can get it it's not great. My sister is bi-polar and until she got on medicare really could not get help for her mental disorder.

[OakLeaf]

I actually think the coverage has improved, because they're finally calling it terrorism.

In the past, the mass media has only been willing to apply that word to a narrow subset of crimes. If the perpetrator was a white person/group targeting women, members of a minority religion, or governmental agencies, it was never called terrorism.

Should it have been the top story on every website/paper this morning? Should the Joplin mosque arson have shared the headlines? I don't know. I think good arguments can be made either way.



Also, I can't disagree that health care, including mental health care, needs to be much more widely available in the USA. Nevertheless, would mental health care have identified or stopped these attacks? For all the controversy over DSM-V, no one has even remotely proposed that racism (or religious hatred) should be a psychiatric diagnosis. It used to be a truism among people who work with victims of domestic abuse, that wife-batterers typically have the most "normal" psychological profiles out there. Just like the refusal to provide health care, the sickness is much more in our culture than it is in any individual...

[PamNY]

Funny, I relate much more to this one. There have been several national or local incidents that have caused my synagogue to hire a police detail.

I had a similar reaction, since I have often seen police stationed at houses of worship.

[zoom-zoom]

I'm not the only one (http://www.kansascity.com/2012/08/06/3746643/jenee-osterheldt-wheres-the-outrage.html) who is seeing drastically less outpouring of support and sorrow directed to the community in WI vs. previous mass shootings. Even 24+ hours later I'm seeing no prayers, poems, or memorial graphics, unlike the days immediately following the CO theater massacre of just 2 weeks ago. The mainstream media is covering this non-stop, but on FB I'm seeing the same emphasis on the Mars Rover and Olympics that that writer is.

[Koronin]

Since the Olympics have been on, I haven't watched much regular news or really much of anything else at all. However I did watch Rachel Maddow's show tonight and she did a segment on the Wisconsin shootings. So there are some out there trying to cover it.

Would this latest one have been prevented by better mental health care, most likely no. However the VA Tech shooting most likely would have been, Gabriel Gifford's shooting most likely would have been. The Colorado one may or may not have been.

[Bethany1]

Mental illness of any kind has been dropped from health care completely. It can be hard to diagnose and once diagnosed if you don't have access or refuse to take the medication terrible things happen. It's something the medical community ignores and is disgraceful. It's a silent epidemic that is showing it's ugly head more and more. Something like heart disease is easily detected. Not so much with any form of mental illness and most of us with a mental illness are not going to take a gun and start shooting in a public place.

What makes it hard it that most of those drugs have terrible side effects and just numb you so you don't feel anything. I'd rather feel something than nothing as i've been on several of them. Most people with mental illness end up in jail, get medication and once out can't afford it or refuse meds and repeat that cycle over and over until they are dropped completely from the system.

I was also surprised and very saddened that this story was basically ignored. I'm so sick of hearing about the Olympics. My heart goes out to this group of people and hope they get the help they need.

The only thing that truly has me upset over our obnoxious new health care is that the Muslim community doesn't have to have insurance due to some stupid cop-out religious law. Something about that insurance is a form of gambling. What about car insurance or house insurance? If we all are required in the US to have it, everyone is in the system and there are no exceptions. Do Muslims in Europe have health insurance or are they exempt?

Gun control will always be a hot topic when some pathetic loser uses one and those countries that have strict control still have crime rates, just not with guns.

I refuse to let these people win and have me cower in fear wherever I go. If we start putting metal detectors and other stuff around "soft targets" we let them win.

[shootingstar]

The only thing that truly has me upset over our obnoxious new health care is that the Muslim community doesn't have to have insurance due to some stupid cop-out religious law. Something about that insurance is a form of gambling. What about car insurance or house insurance? If we all are required in the US to have it, everyone is in the system and there are no exceptions. Do Muslims in Europe have health insurance or are they exempt?



Maybe someone can elaborate on this. Is this more about buying health care insurance from private insurers?

In Canada, a Canadian Muslim gets public health care, like everyone else, regardless of income because they are taxpayers...like everyone else.

[Crankin]

Mental health care is not ignored everywhere, Bethany. Massachusetts has a mental health parity law, which means people need to be able to access mental health care the same way they access physical health care. I'm sorry you have had such a negative experience in accessing care; as a provider, it makes me angry that there's such a difference in other places.
People in European countries have health care as a right; it's mostly run by the government and everyone is covered. Whether certain groups access the system is most likely up to them. There are religious exemptions for lots of things in this country.

[OakLeaf]

the Muslim community doesn't have to have insurance

http://www.snopes.com/politics/medical/exemptions.asp

Maybe you noticed that some of the loudest protests about religious exemptions have come from Roman Catholic institutions (not Roman Catholic individuals).

[PamNY]

I'm not the only one (http://www.kansascity.com/2012/08/06/3746643/jenee-osterheldt-wheres-the-outrage.html) who is seeing drastically less outpouring of support and sorrow directed to the community in WI vs. previous mass shootings. Even 24+ hours later I'm seeing no prayers, poems, or memorial graphics, unlike the days immediately following the CO theater massacre of just 2 weeks ago. The mainstream media is covering this non-stop, but on FB I'm seeing the same emphasis on the Mars Rover and Olympics that that writer is.

Does Facebook actually provide news? Where would the prayers, poems or memorial graphics come from?

[OakLeaf]

It's a (nonscientific) measure of the importance of the issue among sites and persons that you subscribe to. Sure, some individual or some news outlet creates the graphics to begin with, but then they get shared to a greater or lesser extent ("going viral").

I understand the OP's concerns, but I don't know if there's a general answer - the question is specific to her group of subscriptions and FB friends, and I think she was asking whether the rest of us were seeing the same thing in our groups.

I personally am seeing plenty of attention to Oak Creek in my FB news feed. But I do find it distressing that the Joplin mosque arson is getting so little attention in the so-called MSM - and that this very thread is being used to attempt to spread false rumors about Muslims. :(

[Crankin]

Thank you.

[Anyabeth]

I haven't posted about this on Facebook because I cannot stand to get into the political, religious and racial issues on this shooting. It doesn't mean that I don't care, I DO, but I also cannot handle knowing which of the wackos on my feed thinks this is ok (political season is when I hide and unfriend with abandon but still it is shocking). I don't think that this is a good barometer of who cares about the event.

[malkin]

I'm not a heavy Facebook user, so I can't speak to that; my media consumption is mostly radio and internet and I've heard and read quite a bit about who Sikhs are, what they believe, how to pronounce the name of their faith, local security, and some touching victim stories that sound quite similar to what I heard after Colorado.

*exercising restraint re. a few other issues that have been raised on this thread*
:p Think of this as 'biting my tongue!

[Crankin]

I don't post political stuff on FB and I also tried to restrain
myself above. I am sure my views are clear, but I don't even like to talk about them here. This is timely because I have a young friend from grad school who posts lots old political blog stuff on FB. I agree with it 99% of the time, but recently, he had some stuff that was offensive to me as a military mom. I am not conservative at ALL, but don't use offensive terms for military people as a generalization.

[malkin]

I don't mind if others wish to share their views.
It's just best if I can keep my own big mouth shut, because I am rather opinionated, and I have been known to get the teensiest bit carried away, particularly in the use of 'colorful metaphors.'

[beccaB]

I don't mind if others wish to share their views.
It's just best if I can keep my own big mouth shut, because I am rather opinionated, and I have been known to get the teensiest bit carried away, particularly in the use of 'colorful metaphors.'


Me too, and I try to keep my facebook post on topics important to me, but not something as Grave as the subject we're talking about usually. There just isn't really an ability in my tiny little mind, to understand how any person can end the lives of several people just out of hate.

[Aggie_Ama]

I very rarely post anything such as this on FB. I try to keep my FB very non-political/non-religious. Usually about biking, my animals, wine, etc.... My friends who don't tend to annoy me, even the ones I agree with their views. So when CO happened it wasn't in my FB status updates and I knew about this one, was disgusted and horrified but didn't start commenting on FB. I have some VERY opinionated friends on there that I don't want to get started.

[smilingcat]

Don't do facebook nor twitter. I already have far too much computer time per day to be healthy.

The bias, the mayham at Sikh temple, the burning of mosque in Joplin, bombing of Oklahoma federal building are all acts of hate/anger and whatever other adjectives you may want to add.

The coverage is not going to be the same nor should one expect it to be given equal time. We are all biased in one form or another. And the bias is showing through in form of unequal air time.

Why is it that media and collective psyche gave so much time to Natallee Holloway case while no words are ever written of a child dying of hunger in inner cities of America? Both very tragic.

So is the death in Colorado shooting. so is the shooting at Sikh temple... All are very tragic.

I do understand your frustration and anger over the glaring inequity of life. And I think it is important to point out the inequities of life so we all can stare straight into our selves of the bias we hold.

Maybe this will allow us to have deeper understanding of ourselves.

getting off my soapbox.

[zoom-zoom]

Don't do facebook nor twitter. I already have far too much computer time per day to be healthy.

The bias, the mayham at Sikh temple, the burning of mosque in Joplin, bombing of Oklahoma federal building are all acts of hate/anger and whatever other adjectives you may want to add.

The coverage is not going to be the same nor should one expect it to be given equal time. We are all biased in one form or another. And the bias is showing through in form of unequal air time.

Why is it that media and collective psyche gave so much time to Natallee Holloway case while no words are ever written of a child dying of hunger in inner cities of America? Both very tragic.

So is the death in Colorado shooting. so is the shooting at Sikh temple... All are very tragic.

I do understand your frustration and anger over the glaring inequity of life. And I think it is important to point out the inequities of life so we all can stare straight into our selves of the bias we hold.

Maybe this will allow us to have deeper understanding of ourselves.

getting off my soapbox.

I think you have touched exactly on the issue. What surprises me most is the people who will deny that there is bias. When I brought this up elsewhere someone actually tried to suggest that *I* have some sort of pro-Muslim bias...:confused: I'm not pro anyone or anti anyone. I'd just like to think that when our nation prides itself on being a great melting pot that our actions would actually follow our words.

[PamNY]

Why is it that media and collective psyche gave so much time to Natallee Holloway case while no words are ever written of a child dying of hunger in inner cities of America? Both very tragic.

This is simply not true. There is plenty of news coverage of serious issues. The problem is that people don't read it.

Anyone who saw coverage about Natalee Holloway chose to do so.

When it comes to news, we are not passive victims. We are consumers who make choices.